


American Slaughter

by RockingAndRolling



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-Typical Worms (The Magnus Archives), Multi, Original Character(s), Paranoia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:02:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27595885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RockingAndRolling/pseuds/RockingAndRolling
Summary: Arabella Standford transferred over to a university overseas in London for the 'experience'. What she got instead was LITERAL ENTITIES OF FEAR. She made many bad decisions.This is an OC because I can't enjoy media without putting characters I create within the world. She's an American. She's Slaughter Aligned. She's the girl I want to be. I love her. Please don't judge me, I don't ever see OCs in TMA.
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

When Arabella started her internship at the Magnus Institute, her expectations were one of a small building and crew collecting old dolls and Ouija boards as evidence of the paranormal. Instead, she was greeted with a relatively well funded institution filled with workers. Her department, forensics, was one of the more… upfront groups. Many of them had tasers, at least on had a firearm.  
“Protection.” They would say. “Going out into whatever we’re assigned is a lot more dangerous than you think.” Arabella laughed when she had first heard this. They dealt with the dead, or the stuff left behind at a scene, not actual people. She stopped laughing when all of them gave her cross looks.  
Needless to say, she just started going along with it. Her first field ‘mission’ was a bust. Just an empty apartment with a lingering smell of meat, but not much more. They took samples, but all of them came up empty. The rest of her field missions were boring as well. Apparently, all the fun happened when you weren’t the intern who just held the supplies and samples.  
Slowly though, she started working in the lab more than in the field. They were a bit nicer there, and she was always good with the dead. They couldn’t judge, and their secrets were easily revealed with a scalpel. It was an easy job. Examine the bodies or objects, wait for a report to be written, deliver any objects to artefact storage and deliver the reports to the archives, and repeat.  
It changed, however, on her first solo examination. She still didn’t know why they thought it was a good idea to put a little girl before her. She was… covered in burn marks, a stab wound in her chest. She wasn’t more than six years old and she was just… empty. Arabella didn’t handle it while. She picked up the scalpel, started down at the body and just broke. She remembered dropping to the floor, cutting herself on the scalpel, and needing to be carried away from the body. Apparently she wasn’t the first one to react like this in that situation, but she just couldn’t do it anymore. It wasn’t like she was getting any good experience or making any friends in that department.  
So she requested to be transferred to any department that was taking interns. Her expectations were, once again, low. She expected something low profile, just another faceless worker in the institute library.  
She should really stop having low expectations, because now she was the sole intern to the Archivist and his team. They were nice, more friendly than her last team. Sasha took an interest in conversations, Tim made jokes about the records constantly, Martin was kind and checked on her, and Jon was a good boss, if not a bit of a shut in. She only interacted with Elias twice, the first was greeting her into the department and making sure she had her paperwork all in, the second was giving him a report from Jon when he was busy. Elias was intimidating and standing in his office made her neck prickle like she was being watched.  
She was able to work in peace in her new job though. She could listen to music while she went through files, and lunch breaks were often taken with Martin. After work, when she didn’t have practice, Sasha would show her places in London to go when she had days off and the like. Tim, during the day, would often stop by to check, usually just after Martin did so. While they certainly weren’t close, Arabella felt much more seen by her new coworkers than she did before.  
Martin moving into the Archives, however, was surprising, even with his explanations. She now had to knock on every door, due to the one instance she caught Martin mid changing. That was embarrassing, and she vowed that never again would she enter without knocking.  
Jon and Martin were obsessed with worms now. She even got an assignment to research worms. Worms. Martin asked if maggots were anything like the ones he interacted with. Arabella had to give him a small lecture on different types of worms. She never wanted to look at worms again after this assignment. What a fucking shame.


	2. Statement of Jane Prentiss's Attack

“Are you sure you’re alright enough to talk about this, Arabella?” Jon asked, looking at her with a bit of worry as she sat down. “You still look a bit unwell, in my opinion.”

“I’m fine, Mr. Jon. I promise, the hospital cleared me of everything. It’s just a bit… weird to think about this right now. Already got the pity talk from everyone else.” She manages to chuckle, though she doesn’t know how. It wasn’t really much of a laughing story.

“Very well.” He cleared his throat. She noticed that the recorder was already on, and she shifted a bit. “Statement of Arabella Stanford, intern of the Magnus Institute Archival team, regarding the infestation and attack of the Magnus Institute by Jane Prentiss. Statement recorded direct from subject, 4th August, 2016. Begin when you’re ready.”

“Right… well. I wasn’t in the main room when the… what did you call it? Attack? Started.” She fiddled with the ring on her left hand, looking at the table instead of at Jon. “I had left to grab another box of statements. I was going through them, seeing which ones could be digitized and which couldn’t. I was listening to music. God, my headphones really are noise cancelling, huh? Didn’t even hear any shouting whatsoever.”

Jon gave her a look she couldn’t quite place, but nodded for her to go on. Her gaze lingered on a prominent scar on his jaw, and she felt panic start well up before she forced it back down again.

“Anyways… I didn’t even notice the worms. I don’t even think I had any near me until I got to the first big mass. I remember… turning the corner and seeing Jane Prentiss. Her back was turned to me, and it seemed like none of the worms had noticed I was standing there. I remember thinking for a second about how long her hair was. It’s an odd thought now, but my aunt is a hairstylist, and getting your hair dyed so many times gets you wise to hair care. Her hair wasn’t long as in ‘flowing, model’ type, it was like… she forgot that she had to take care of it. Like someone who was in a coma and no one made sure she was kept taken care of.” She got another look at that statement, but it was easily placed as ‘concern’ instead of the strange look from earlier.

“I guess it was this that made me stop. I was so confused on why someone who looked like she hadn’t touched a shampoo bottle in years was in the Institute, not the mass of worms, but her hair. Maybe I’m just used to maggots.” She manages to smile again, but it felt a bit more natural than her laugh. “I slowly put down the box of statements, careful not to touch a worm or make a noise. I heard Martin talking about the worms before, and I didn’t want her knowing I was there. I looked over my shoulder, and saw another mass of worms the way I came. I was essentially trapped between this woman and more worms. The only way was up.”

“Now I’m not a climber. I sucked ass at P.E. in all of my years of school. But when I tell you I climb up the shelves, I climbed up those shelves. I have no idea how she didn’t know I was there. Or maybe she did… and she decided it wasn’t worth dragging me down.” She took a shaky breath. “I followed her around on the top of the shelves. I lost her for a bit. Decided to sit up there and hope that I could figure out a way to get down, or to find you. I didn’t know what to do, and I kept thinking about the fact that I could be the only one alive, or the only one in the archives and eventually she was going to bring down the bookshelves and bring me down with them-“ She had to stop herself, squeezing her eyes shut to try and calm down. She felt Jon place his hand on her shoulder.

“Do you need to stop?” He asked.

“No… No, I think I’m okay. Thank you.” She said, taking a deep, slow breath. “But I found her again. She was standing over you and Tim just as the fire alarm went off. I remember when I first took a breath of CO2. I think I was right under one of the releases, maybe that’s why I passed out so soon. The last thing I remember is seeing a bunch of worms go still, and then blacking out. Then I woke up in the hospital, told what had happened, and then was told I had been in a coma for six days because I was breathing a concentrated direct stream of CO2 and had slipped off the bookshelf. That’s all I know.”

She watched Jon shift something that looked like hospital records around. “Thank you, Arabella. I do have a question for you, just to clarify.”

“Yes?” “What was Prentiss doing, when you first saw her?” “She was… She was tearing up some statements. In fact, I think she was tearing the statements I had already digitized. She didn’t even grab the ones I set aside for recording. Maybe she got to those later, but I admit I feel a bit relieved that she hadn’t destroyed hard work right in front of me.” She joked.

“Well… now we know.” He smiled at her a bit. “Thank you, Arabella. I’ll let you get back to work. Let me know if you need anything.”

“Right. Well, back to the work then. Us Americans know how to do that at least.” She stood, stretching her good arm a bit. She left the office just as Jon clicked off the tape.

-

“Supplemental.” He said as he clicked on the secondary tape recorder. “I’m technically not working, not supposed to be for a month, but Miss Arabella insisted I take her statement. I’m not sure how she managed to convince Elias that she was well enough to return to work, but perhaps her university insisted she return to it.” He sighed. “In my research to discover the truth of Gertrude’s murder, it seems Arabella is the only one I can trust to not be the culprit, if only because of her location at the relative time of the murder.”

“On March 15th, 2015, Arabella Stanford was at her home university in the America state of Louisiana. Her social media accounts show her with her younger sister on that date. Not to mention, Arabella only joined the Magnus Institute as a Forensic Anthropology intern for the forensics department a few months ago. I am well aware of why she transferred, but even then, that seems to indicate a mistake in career choice, not because of wracking guilt over seeing a dead body.”

“It seems that currently, Arabella is the only person I can trust inside of the Archive. Even then, it is best to keep distance, for her loyalties may lie somewhere I cannot trust. End supplemental.”


End file.
